Safe and Well at Work: Occupational Health and Safety Strategic Framework for NHSScotland
Safe and Well at Work, published in March 2011, is a high level document which promotes a person-centred approach to the occupational health and safety of NHSScotland staff, recognising that a good staff experience which values staff health, safety and wellbeing will lead to a better patient experience and outcomes.
This framework sets out how NHSScotland Boards should approach occupational health and safety to keep staff motivated and healthy, engaged and safe. It provides a national statement of aims and priorities, together with a clear framework for delivering improvements in the occupational health and safety of NHSScotland staff.
To ensure a step change in delivery and consistency in approach at national level, four priority areas of action were identified: mental health and wellbeing; musculoskeletal disorders; violence and aggression; and slips, trips and falls.
The Framework includes many actions for Boards, staff, and the Government, and identifies the Occupational Health and Safety Strategic Forum, (OHSSFor) as being responsible for supporting and monitoring progress in implementing the Framework.
As part of the development of the framework, OHSSFor identified the need to develop an ‘OH passport’, for staff to meet on-going demand from NHSScotland Boards for a mechanism to store and transfer basic occupational health data held about individual staff members. This work has now finished, an electronically stored and transferrable data set to assist health clearance process for NHSScotland staff involved directly in patient care has been created and the results communicated to Boards on 24 May 2012 via